At Least 90 News Positions Said to Be Eliminated
Asian Americans Have Higher Proportion of Liberals
Millennials Fine With Interracial Marriage, Friendships
Obama to Senate Dems: Ditch Media “Echo Chamber”
With Haiti Relief, Hispanic Media Show “Maturation”
Telemundo Debuts “Enhanced” Local News in 4 Markets
Amid Financial Distress, Jet Unveils a Makeover
Oakland Paper, Maynard to Train Citizen Writers
Emerson J-Prof Pleased by Report on Race and Tenure
Juan Antonio Leon Jr. Dies, Philly Activist, Cameraman
At Least 90 News Positions Said to Be Eliminated
In a budget-tightening shakeup at CBS News, Randall Pinkston, a New York-based correspondent since 1994 who reports for the “CBS Evening News,” is moving to CBS Newspath, the network’s 24-hour broadcast news service for affiliates, Pinkston confirmed on Wednesday.
Teri Okita, a correspondent for Newspath in Los Angeles since 2000, was laid off, a colleague there said, apparently bumped to make room for Sandra Hughes, currently a CBS News correspondent in Los Angeles.
Erika Wortham of the flagship “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” believed to be the only African American associate producer in New York, was transferred to “Up to the Minute,” CBS’ overnight news broadcast, colleagues said. (Kimberly Godwin is a senior producer on the same broadcast.)
“At least 90 positions are being eliminated in the budget tightening, according to multiple sources, which began Friday when the Moscow bureau was shuttered and the Tel Aviv bureau was reduced to one producer,” Matea Gold wrote Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times.
“Every newscast is feeling the cuts, which executives said were necessary to reduce news-gathering costs and make the news division more of a financial contributor to parent company CBS Corp.”
“The good thing is I still have a job and I’ll be working with colleagues I’ve known for years,” Pinkston told Journal-isms.
Moreover, after having worked weekends for a while, “I will now be working Monday through Friday.”¬†
Gold wrote, “Every newscast is feeling the cuts, which executives said were necessary to reduce news-gathering costs and make the news division more of a financial contributor to parent company CBS Corp.”
Along with Pinkston and Hughes, Sheila MacVicar in London and science and technology reporter Daniel Sieberg were asked to take positions with CBS Newspath, Gold wrote. “The correspondents will still report for the network’s broadcasts too, according to a news executive who declined to be named when speaking about personnel.”
Pinkston said he commemorates 30 years with CBS on Feb. 20, having started at CBS-owned WCBS in New York in 1980.
According to his CBS bio, “Pinkston has covered many major stories of the past decade for CBS News, including Baghdad, where he reported on the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. He also reported on the war in Afghanistan from the front lines in Tora Bora and Jalalabad; the devastating earthquake in Turkey; the Albanian refugee crisis in Kosovo and the U.S. military participation in the Balkans; Saddam Hussein’s refusal to allow U.N. inspection officers to enter Iraq; the U.S. intervention in Haiti; the Susan Smith trial, during which he broke the story of her arrest and landed the first interview with her ex-husband, David Smith; the Freemen siege in Montana; and the Unabomber story.”
Pinkston, 59, began his television career in Jackson, Miss., at WLBT-TV in 1971, where he became the station’s first black anchor. “He was one of the first beneficiaries of an affirmative-action hiring push begun after a citizen’s group challenged WLBT’s license in a test case. The success of that challenge spurred TV stations around the country to unlock doors for black journalists,” as the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported.
Pinkston was a member of the 1973 class of the Michele Clark Fellowship program at Columbia University, a forerunner of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. His classmates included Johnathan Rodgers, chief executive of the TV One cable network; Jose Santiago, news director at Pacifica radio station WBAI, New York; and Will Wright, formerly general manager of the defunct VOOM HD News.
“The cuts were surprisingly deep,” Felix Gillette wrote in the New York Observer.
“By Monday afternoon, staffers from Washington to L.A. were sputtering in disbelief as they heard of top producers on the chopping block – particularly Mark Katkov and Jill Rosenbaum in D.C. and Roberta Hollander and Barbara Pierce in L.A. These were seasoned veterans, part of the old school known back in the Dan Rather days as ‘the Hard Corps.’ Over the years, they had somehow managed to outlive every big buzz saw to cut through the newsroom. They knew how to get more from less. Each thought of himself as worth five producers at ABC News.”
- Kevin Allocca, TV Newser: CBS’ Sean McManus: ‘There hasn’t been one single discussion about altering Katie’s role, adjusting her contract’
Asian Americans Have Higher Proportion of Liberals
“Gallup Daily tracking data reveal that Asian-Americans tend to be more Democratic and much less conservative than the general population in their political views,” Jeffrey M. Jones of the Gallup Organization reported on Wednesday.
“Asians are distinct from the other racial and ethnic groups in their ideological orientation. Asians are the most likely to identify themselves as politically liberal and, in fact, are the only group that has a higher proportion of liberals than conservatives. Also, Asians are proportionately more likely than the other groups to be moderates.
“. . . Comparatively, Asian-Americans tend to be less religious than those in other racial or ethnic groups. For example, just over half of Asians say religion is an important part of their daily lives, significantly lower than the percentage of whites, blacks, or Hispanics who say this.”
Jones said the findings were based on aggregated data from Gallup’s 2009 Daily tracking survey, including interviews with more than 4,000 Asian-Americans. “The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Asians made up 4.5% of the U.S. population in 2008, and so, Asians rank as the fourth-largest racial or ethnic group behind whites, Hispanics, and blacks,” the story added.
Millennials Fine With Interracial Marriage, Friendships
A Pew Research Center report on U.S. racial attitudes “finds that an overwhelming majority of Millennials, regardless of race, say they would be fine with a family member’s marriage to someone of a different racial or ethnic group,” the Pew center reported on Monday.
Millennials are defined as 18-to-29 year olds.
“Asked about particular groups to which they do not belong, Millennials are about equally accepting of marriage to someone in any of the groups tested: Roughly nine-in-ten say they would be fine with a family member’s marriage to an African American (88%), a Hispanic American (91%), an Asian American (93%) or a white American (92%).
“This high level of acceptance among Millennials holds true across ethnic and racial groups; there is no significant difference between white, black and Hispanic Millennials in the degree of acceptance of interracial marriage.
“Compared with older groups, particularly Americans ages 50 or older, Millennials are significantly more likely to be accepting of interracial marriage. While 85% of Millennials say they would be fine with a marriage to someone from any of the groups asked about, that number drops to about three-quarters (73%) among 30-to-49-year-olds, 55% among 50-to-64-year-olds, and just 38% of those ages 65 and older.
“. . . In addition to their racially liberal views on marriage and dating, a majority of Millennials (54%) in Pew Research’s report on race say at least some of their friends are of a different race.”
President Obama told Democrats, “just go talk to folks out there.” (Credit: MediaBistro)
Obama to Senate Dems: Ditch Media “Echo Chamber”
“CNN and MSNBC carried [P]resident Obama’s Q&A session with Senate Democrats in full this morning, while Fox News carried the first five minutes live, and streamed the rest on FoxNews.com,” Kevin Allocca reported Wednesday for MediaBistro.
“During today’s Q&A, MSNBC broke away for a roughly ten-minute analysis and commercial break in the middle. It was right after the president made this remark:
” ‘Do you know what I think would make a difference? If everybody here ‚Äî excuse all the members of the press who are here ‚Äî if everybody here turned off your CNN, your FOX, your ‚Äî just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics.’ “
- A. Peter Bailey, National Newspaper Publishers Association: Obama Dreads Being Labeled “Angry Black Male”
- Mark Lassiter, thedefendersonline.com: Sting Like a Bee: Obama vs. the GOP
- Lenny McAllister, theRoot.com: African Americans Face Political Reality
- Patrick O’Connor and Mike Allen, Politico: How GOP retreat wound up on TV
Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz shakes hands with TV host Don Francisco during Univision’s Jan. 23 “Unidos Por Haiti,” a five-hour special edition of “Sabado Gigante” dedicated to raising funds for the earthquake victims in Haiti. (Credit: Univision)
With Haiti Relief, Hispanic Media Show “Maturation”
“With a roster of stars rarely seen outside of awards shows ‚Äî including singers Shakira, Ricky Martin, Daddy Yankee and Gloria Estefan, and video appearances by the presidents of Mexico and Panama,” a five-hour Univision telethon for Haiti relief on Jan. 23 “raised more than $6 million and demonstrated the industry‚Äôs desire to take up the mantle of public advocate that mainstream English-language networks have held for years,” Laura Wides-Munoz wrote Monday for the Associated Press.
“Hispanic media outlets have long provided in-depth coverage of international news, often to a greater extent than their English-language counterparts due to the international bent of their audience ‚Äî and they have often acted as advocates for Hispanic immigrants, their core audience.
“Yet even for events like the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks, New York-based Univision Communications Inc. aired the same concert-fundraisers as the English-language networks broadcast, only with subtitles. It‚Äôs done telethons before but never on such a scale ‚Äî marshaling all three of its TV networks, radio and Internet outlets.
” ‘It‚Äôs an interesting sign of the maturation of the medium,’ said Teresa Ponte, interim chair of Florida International University‚Äôs Department of Journalism and Broadcasting. Ponte also noted that the efforts were focused ‘on behalf of a community that isn‚Äôt (even) part of their constituency.’ “
- Jean Roland Chery, Committee to Protect Journalists: Radio Metropole: A station in Haiti running out of steam
- Haitian Times coverage
- David Sirota, syndicated: The Odyssey of Haiti
- Peter H. Smyth, Greatermedia.com: When Tragedy Strikes
Amid Financial Distress, Jet Unveils a Makeover
Jet magazine on Tuesday announced a makeover that its owner, Johnson Publishing Co., described as “the most sweeping evolution of its iconic brand in the company‚Äôs history.” It includes “a new logo, new design and layout, new sections and features to readers looking for that unique Black take on the latest in news and entertainment.
“The brand will showcase various points-of-view from recognizable contributors such as Dr. Ian Smith, Warren Ballentine and Fonzworth Bentley on topics directly impacting Black America. Additionally, JET will maintain its readers‚Äô favorites such as JET Beauty and JET Love (formally known as Love and Happiness), while dialing up newsworthy content in sports, finance, beauty and style, all with a unique Black angle.”
Both Jet and its sister publication, Ebony, have suffered from declines in advertising revenue and advertising pages during the economic downturn.
Moreover, Jet remains victimized by its lag time from creation to publication. A reader of BlackAmericaWeb.com wrote Wednesday, “My husband’s mother kept every Jet & Ebony back to the late 1950’s ‚Äî including the 8 1/2 x 11 editions from back in the day ‚Äî and when she died, we kept renewing the subscriptions to maintain her legacy. But the truth is, we flipped through the Teddy Pendergrass issue and didn’t even read it because the news was so old. . .”
Crain’s Chicago Business wrote in June, “Ebony owner Johnson Publishing Co. is under siege, battered by sharp drops in advertising and circulation amid the most severe downturn in its 67-year history. In the past three months, Johnson has been hit with contractors’ liens claiming the company failed to pay for work worth nearly $500,000. In May, Johnson mortgaged its South Michigan Avenue headquarters building and parking garage to its printer, R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Loan documents say the deal secured previous debts to Donnelley totaling $12.7 million ‚Äî another sign of financial distress for the nation’s largest black-owned publishing company.”
Asked whether the contractors had been paid, spokeswoman Wendy E. Parks told Journal-isms on Monday, “We are continuing to work with our vendors to ensure we adhere to our financial obligations.”
Telemundo Debuts “Enhanced” Local News in 4 Markets
“Telemundo network this week debuted ‘enhanced local evening news’ in just 4 of the 7 markets where it had previously dismantled news operations: Dallas, Houston, Phoenix/Tucson and San Jose. For the past 3 years, these cities have been airing regionalized newscasts produced by the Telemundo Production Center (TPC) in Dallas,” Veronica Villafa?±e reported Wednesday on her Media Moves site.
“The TPC will not disappear from the picture. A spokeswoman for the network tells me the TPC will remain a content provider, with some segments of these “enhanced local” newscasts continued to be produced from Dallas.
“San Antonio, Fresno and Las Vegas, the three other markets that lost their local newscasts 3 years ago, will continue to receive the regionalized news service from the TPC.”
Oakland Paper, Maynard to Train Citizen Writers
“Someone reading this story in West Oakland could end up writing one of the next stories the Tribune publishes,” Sean Maher wrote Tuesday in the Oakland Tribune.
“The Oakland Voices project, housed in a rented space inside the West Oakland branch of the city’s public library, will hold an open house Saturday in an effort to recruit residents to learn journalism skills and enrich neighborhood coverage with their perspectives.
“The 10 West Oakland residents selected to participate in the six-month program will work with veteran journalists and educators to develop reporting skills they will use to research, write and publish stories on a dedicated portion of the Tribune’s Web site, and potentially in the Tribune as well.
“Residents who apply and are accepted into the program will be trained to tell stories through a curriculum devised by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, headed by Dori Maynard, daughter of former Oakland Tribune Publisher Robert C. Maynard.
“The pilot already has garnered national attention and, if successful, could be applied in other parts of the city and around the country, said Kevin Keane, vice president of news for Bay Area News Group-East Bay.”
Emerson J-Prof Pleased by Report on Race and Tenure
Last year, Emerson College professors Dr. Roger House, who teaches journalism history, and Pierre Desir prepared complaints with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination after determining that since 1880, only one black professor had earned tenure without suing the college and enduring a years-long lawsuit.
On Monday, an external review commissioned by the college found that “For too long, Emerson College has ignored the role racial bias plays in tenure and promotion, leading to an overwhelmingly white faculty and leaving blacks at a disadvantage,” Tracy Jan wrote Tuesday in the Boston Globe.
“Following a protracted public battle, Emerson decided to give Roger House, one of the black professors denied tenure in 2008, another shot in 2011 after the journalism professor agreed to drop his complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination,” Jan wrote.
“Pierre Desir, the other professor turned down for tenure, refused the deal and left the school.”
House told Journal-isms, “The tenure review committee provided an insightful, comprehensive, and forward looking assessment of the race and tenure problem at Emerson. Hopefully the report will result in a teachable moment on campus.
“I’m pleased that the College hired a qualified team of experts to look into the issue. I wonder how many other schools would have the courage to delve into their tenure practices?
“I’m glad to be back at the College. It could not have happened without the support of my colleagues. I look forward to continuing the pursuit of tenure ‚Äî but I don’t know what the future will hold.”
Juan Antonio Leon Jr. Dies; Philly Activist, Cameraman
“It took demonstrations, political pressure and perseverance for Latinos to break into the mainstream media in Philadelphia,” John F. Morrison wrote Tuesday in the Philadelphia Daily News. “There were no Latinos either in front of or behind the TV cameras, despite the fact that Philadelphia had a large and thriving Hispanic population. Latino news rarely got reported, either on the air or in the local newspapers.
“Juan Antonio “Tony” Leon Jr. and a few other activists set about to change that. In the late ’60s they protested . . . He went on to become a highly regarded cameraman, documentarian, producer and editor ‚Äî first for WPVI-TV, Channel 6, and later for KYW-TV, Channel 3 ‚Äî as well as a dedicated activist in the Hispanic community.
“He died Thursday after a long fight against cancer. He was 56 . . .
“During his career, Tony’s editing contributed to the winning of two Emmys for two KYW-TV specials in 1984, and he won honors for his community activities.”
Short Takes
- “Saying they can be ‘vital news-gathering and news-delivery tools,’ the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Wednesday issued new ethics guidelines for blogs and social media,” John Eggerton reported for Broadcasting & Cable. “The crux of the guidelines is that news organizations need to apply the same standards of fairness, accuracy and source-checking to information from Twitter or a blog or Facebook as they do for their other journalistic enterprises.”
- “Iranian authorities are now holding at least 47 journalists in prison, more than any single country has imprisoned since 1996, according to a new survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists,” CPJ said on Wednesday. “While many of the detainees were arrested in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election, CPJ‚Äôs survey found that authorities are continuing to wage an aggressive campaign to round up independent and opposition journalists.”
- “In a situation ripe with symbolism, Ann Curry ‚Äî veteran NBC News anchor and Twitter — was trapped
inside an elevator in the New York Times building on Monday after speaking at a panel discussion about social media and news gathering,” the TVSpy.com site reported. “Curry, along with other members of the event’s panel, including Phil Thomas, co-founder of mobile video-sharing platform Pegshot, and Jeff Pulver, a technology blogger and activist, was trapped in the elevator for roughly an hour before help finally arrived. Gawker described the predicament as the ‘most thoroughly documented elevator entrapment ever.’ Within seconds of the elevator stopping, the group was busy typing on their mobile devices ‚Äî sending tweets and recording video.” - “Univision Communications is teaming with the Associated Press on a study exploring the opinions and experiences of Hispanics in the U.S.,” Mike Reynolds reported Tuesday for Multichannel News, “The project, the findings of which will be released in May, involves a comprehensive national public opinion survey of 2,000 Hispanics on a wide-ranging set of topics, including matters of culture and identity, political attitudes, demographic trends, and patterns of media use.”
- Washington Post Metro columnist Courtland Milloy disclosed to readers Wednesday that he had recently been treated for prostate cancer. “I took news of my diagnosis so poorly that, in the end, my own thoughts had hurt more than the treatment. Fear of negative outcomes had me feeling like the worst had already happened,” he wrote. “A word of caution about information overload: There is so much conjecture and myth mixed in with facts about prostate cancer that separating wheat from chaff was nearly impossible. Rely on the Internet at your own risk. I recommend a book, ‘Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer,’ by Patrick Walsh, a physician at Johns Hopkins University’s Brady Urological Institute. Also, talk to a urological oncologists.”
- “Award-winning producer Geraldine Moriba has been named executive producer of CNN’s ‘In America’ unit, the network’s newly created division, which will extend the ‘In America’ franchise anchored by Soledad O‚ÄôBrien. The announcement was made today by Bart Feder, senior vice president for current programming, CNN/U.S.,” the News on News Web site reported on Tuesday.
- “Former Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson will join the Obama administration and head to London as a speechwriter for Ambassador Louis Susman. Thomson confirmed the news in an e-mail on Tuesday,” Ed Keefe reported for the Post. “Thomson, who grew up in Surrey, England, worked for The Post from 1983 to 2008, most recently as a film critic for the Weekend and Style sections.”
- “Young children of Hispanic mothers whose main language is Spanish watch less TV than children of Hispanic moms who speak mostly English, a U.S. study has found,” Business Week reported on Tuesday. “Johns Hopkins Children’s Center researchers surveyed 1,332 Hispanic and white mothers with children aged 4 months to 3 years, and found that children of English-speaking Hispanic mothers watched nearly 2.5 hours of TV per day, compared to about 90 minutes for children of Spanish-speaking mothers.”
- “Leonard Pitts Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, will receive the William Allen White Foundation‚Äôs National Citation during a free and public ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5, at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union,” the University of Kansas announced.
- Phillip S. Lucas, a senor print journalism major at Howard University, was the only student from a historically black college or university to place in William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program. Lucas, from Seattle, won 10th place and a $500 scholarship for story on a Chinese dry wall that he wrote at the New York Times Student Journalism Institute in New Orleans.
- Richard Prince discusses Monday’s Journal-isms column with Keith Murphy on “The Urban Journal,” accessible on this Web site. Look for “Pt. 4.”
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